Exton

"Holy fuck...." Hugh's gravelly, seldom-used voice is low, almost reverential, and the others turn to see

a creature, seven feet high, standing in kind of a half-crouch, arms spread wide apart for balance. The head resembles an elongated skull, bristling with jagged teeth. The elbows bear wickedly curved spikes and it has three - no, five - no, six scorpionlike tails. The skin is a deep coppery brown, but the firelight paints it with gold. The eyes glow with sulfurous light and it shuffles forward with a kind of murderous confidence.

No defense like a good offense... Marc strides forward to meet the thing, mindful of the effect of Cold Iron on the fae. No matter how big and tough this thing is, it'll be a little pussy once it meets my axe....

The tails unfurl like so many whips, snapping at him from all directions. He bats them aside with his axe, but the glancing blows seem to disturb the thing not at all. Meanwhile, the wickedly curved barbs come too close for comfort, going for his eyes and belly. One skitters off his back and only his backplate saves him from having a chunk of meat gouged out of his shoulder.  

Okay, wrong proverb. Discretion is the better part of valor....

Marc backs slowly away, and now the others join in, keeping the thing off-balance. This thing seems resistant to the effects of iron - no sizzling, no smoking. Hell, maybe it's not Fae at all, just some kind of local animal.... The tails appear to be prehensile, as though they operate independent of the thing's eyes. Again and again they lash out; again and again they're just barely deflected, and now the reason for the thing's resistance becomes clear; what appeared at first to be skin now seems to be something akin to an insect's exoskeleton, a smooth shell with few joints to exploit. Blades bounce off or are turned aside, and the damned tails are in perpetual motion, seeking, questing....

Tannr roars as a barb bites deep into his hip. The thing throws its head back and the tail seems to pulse, pumping venom into the wound; but now the giant Hugh makes his move, grappling with the monster from behind, locking the tails down. Marc's axe flashes, severing the barb lodged in Tannr's flesh; fortunately there's a joint just where the barb joins the tail. Hugh roars, trying to crush the beast, but even his prodigious strength is unequal to the task; it's all he can do to restrain the death-dealing appendages, even with his mates striking a blow when and where they can. The cords in his neck stand out in hard relief and his muscles swell and then one of the tails whips free. It digs into his back, stabbing deep, and he gasps with the pain of it. Another breaks free, and then another; and then Hugh is lost, buried in lashing, flailing barbed tails....